


Left on the Hither Side of Death

by inexplicifics



Series: The Accidental Warlord and His Pack [30]
Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Storytelling, Witcher Trials, mentioned child death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-02
Updated: 2020-11-02
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:07:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27340225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inexplicifics/pseuds/inexplicifics
Summary: Jaskier asks Triss about the creation of the testing potion and what happened to the Schools' mages. It's not a pretty story.
Relationships: Jaskier | Dandelion & Triss Merigold, Witcher Aubry & Jaskier | Dandelion
Series: The Accidental Warlord and His Pack [30]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1683661
Comments: 112
Kudos: 2055





	Left on the Hither Side of Death

“So I have a question,” Jaskier says, as he scrapes the pile of herbs from his cutting board into the jar of oil waiting for them.

“Go on,” Triss says, nodding, and stretches up on her toes to reach for a jar of some unpleasant monster part or other. Aubry reaches over her head and plucks it down, handing it to her carefully, and retreats to his usual corner again. “Thanks, Aubry.”

“So this room is big enough for a dozen people to work,” Jaskier starts, slowly, “and I’m pretty sure _you_ didn’t develop the Trial mutagens. There were other mages here, before you came, weren’t there?”

Triss puts the jar down and turns to lean against the table, giving him a solemn look. “This isn’t a tale for one of your songs, bard,” she says softly. “It’s - no one here likes to remember it. I’ll tell you, just -”

“No song, got it,” Jaskier promises. “Or if I do write one it’ll never see the light of day.”

“Good enough,” Triss nods. “Alright. So. When we got here, me and Yen and Istredd and everyone, there were sorcerers already, a dozen or so. A couple for every School. They were - you know about the different types of mages?”

“...As in, whether from Aretuza or Ban Ard?” Jaskier ventures.

“No, though that’s a good guess,” Triss says. “Roughly speaking, there are court mages and research mages.”

Jaskier grins. “Yen’s a court mage,” he guesses, “and you’re a research mage.”

“Yep,” Triss agrees. “I mean, it’s not a hard and fast rule or anything, I _could_ certainly work in a court if I wanted to, it’s just a way to describe what a mage is happiest doing, or best suited to.” She shrugs. “All the sorcerers here were research types. And Yen and me and our group, we sort of came in as court mages, to support the Warlord, y’know?”

Jaskier nods, and picks up another bundle of herbs, starting to chop as he listens.

“So a couple months after we got here, the year’s Trials happened. And - well. It. Nobody _warned_ us, because all the Witchers were so _used_ to it, so we woke up to the screaming. It’s...not a quick process. Three days, on average. And when it was over, we watched the Witchers build the pyres, and there were - there were so many little bodies.” She swallows. “Fifty-two. I counted.”

Jaskier puts the knife down, feeling a little ill. Fifty-two children - fifty-two boys about as old as Ciri is now. Oh, Melitele preserve them all.

“So I...asked some questions.” Triss grimaces. “There’s a certain kind of man who looks at a pretty young woman - even if he _knows_ she’s a sorceress - and figures she’s not got a brain in her lovely little head, and will tell her anything she likes, as condescendingly as possible.”

“I’ve met several of them,” Jaskier agrees. Valdo Marx, for one - there’s a reason Priscilla hates the man as much as Jaskier does.

“Right. Well. It’s infuriating, but also occasionally useful. One of the sorcerers - Bear School, he was, I think - was exactly that sort, and I batted my eyes at him and got the whole process of the Trials explained to me.” Triss flicks her hands, as if batting away something disgusting. “I think he thought I’d be so impressed I’d end up in his bed, which, _hell no_. But I got what I needed. And then I did some research - quite a lot of research, actually, I basically ransacked the library here - and figured out that in point of fact the mutagens _need_ to be that horrid in order to _work_. No point trying to dilute them, or anything like that.”

She shrugs. “I won’t go into detail about the process of designing the test potion - I don’t think you’ve any alchemical background, so most of it wouldn’t actually make any sense to you.”

“Thank you,” Jaskier says, quite sincerely.

“The short version is, there’s a certain...call it an element, that’s either in your blood or it isn’t. If it’s in your blood, you can deal with the mutagens. If it isn’t, you die. And while testing every new trainee’s _blood_ would be a hassle, it’s pretty easy to give them a very, very mild mutagen and see if they become ill from _that_. Once I’d figured that out, it was just a matter of picking the mutagen and refining it down to something that wouldn’t have any nasty after-effects once the kid finished puking.”

“Makes sense,” Jaskier agrees, adding several underlines and a little star to his mental note about never ever trying the testing potion, even on a dare. Not that anyone in Kaer Morhen _would_ dare him to, but still. Uncontrollable vomiting is not his idea of a pleasant afternoon, and it would almost be _worse_ if he _didn’t_ throw up.

“It genuinely didn’t take that long to put together,” Triss says, and she looks...sad and furious, which is an interesting and worrying combination. “A couple of months, which is very little to a witcher or a mage. Even for a human it’s not _that_ long. I brought it to Vesemir, who brought it to the full council, and it - Rennes _wept_. Ivar _hugged_ me.” Jaskier tries to imagine big, stoic Ivar hugging _anyone_ and can’t quite manage it. Granite-faced Rennes _weeping_ is even less comprehensible.

“Geralt asked me to announce it to the Schools that night at supper,” Triss continues softly. “So I did. And - Jas, you could’ve heard a pin drop. _Utter_ silence, just complete shock, and - you know that moment just before a crowd really starts to _cheer_?”

“Yeah,” Jaskier says. He’s had a few performances like that, where there’s that moment of silence because no one can quite bear to break the spell by cheering. It’s a deeply flattering silence.

“And Sulla, who was the chief mage back then, got up and said that they forbid it.”

“He _what?_ ” Jaskier blurts, gaping at her. “He - _forbid?_ What? _Why?_ ”

Aubry rumbles a growl, quiet and angry. “He told us they needed the deaths for their _experiments_. That we could play at being heroes, but must never forget who our true masters were, what our true _uses_ were. That we were all their _toys_ , to use and discard as they chose.”

Jaskier makes an incoherent noise of rage. They called his Witchers _what_? They _dared_? They - “They were doing that on _purpose?_ ” he sputters. “That - seven boys in ten - Melitele _wept_!”

Triss nods. “I probably should have guessed,” she says. “Since it _was_ such an easy thing to make the testing potion - almost four hundred years, and no one had ever come up with it before? But I was so excited to have _fixed_ it -” she breaks off and shakes her head. “I should have seen how twisted they’d gotten. That’s the dangerous thing about research mages. When you’re up in your tower tinkering all the time, it’s really, really easy to forget that people are...well... _people_. To start seeing everyone and everything as nothing more than possible research. Experimental subjects. Expendable.”

“Ye gods,” Jaskier whispers. “But what _happened_?”

“I genuinely don’t remember who moved first,” Triss says slowly. “One minute the mages were standing there looking snooty - they had their own table, near the Wolf table, just for them, the stuck-up assholes - and then there was this...roar. I’ve never heard anything like it. Like a mountain falling. And then -” she spreads her hands. “Witchers...happened.”

“Was a Cat, first,” Aubry says. “Cats are all a little mad. Go berserk if you push ‘em too far. Was Kiyan, I think, broke first.” He snarls softly. “But then it was all of us.” He’s got his hand clenched on the back of a chair, so hard the knuckles are white and the sturdy wood is beginning to splinter. “We all remember,” he says, so quietly Jaskier has to strain to hear it. “We all had brothers, before the Trials. _I_ had a brother. Dear as Eskel is to the Wolf. Died on the bed next to mine.”

“Oh gods,” Jaskier breathes.

“None of the sorcerers got a spell off,” Triss says. “I don’t think they even realized they were in danger before they were dead. Geralt ordered the bodies burned, what was left of them, and Yen and I sat down and went through their notes and pulled out all the - all the bits that had nothing to do with the _Trials_ , and burned most of that, too. It was...not pleasant reading. And then it was just me in charge of all the Trials, because I don’t think the Witchers will ever trust _any_ other mage to handle them.”

Aubry nods. “How could we? _Maybe_ if you took an apprentice. But no more Ban Ard bastards. Ever.”

“Melitele wept,” Jaskier says faintly. He’s feeling a little ill, truth be told. The mages had _wanted_ the deaths? It’s going to take him a while to really wrap his head around the idea of _anyone_ being that utterly heartless. Jaskier has seen his lovers wake from nightmares of the Trials - has heard the agony in Geralt’s voice as he recounted the losses among his class of trainees, the rasping horror in Eskel’s harsh descriptions of the stone tables and the screams - has seen Lambert’s vicious, half-feral rage over being the only one of his class to survive. Has looked at Ciri and realized that _she_ would soon be the right age to go through the Trials, were Geralt to ever dream of allowing such a thing - and would most likely die of them. It’s the sort of thought that keeps him up at night, and gives him _nightmares_.

“Sit down,” Triss says, pushing him towards a chair, and Jaskier obeys without really thinking about it. “Breathe. We’ve all had a while to get used to this, I suppose.”

Aubry pats his shoulder gently, big warm hand heavy and comforting.

“That’s...deeply foul,” Jaskier says at last. “I’m very, very glad they’re dead.”

“So’re we,” Aubry says.

“I will make no song of them,” Jaskier says, reaching up to cover Aubry’s hand with his. “Let their names die with them; let them be forgotten. But I will make a song of _you_ , Triss, if you’ll let me.”

“Of me?” Triss says, startled.

“Of the woman who has saved, if my rough calculations do not fail me, at least four hundred children from the most horrible death imaginable, and whose invention will save many hundreds - maybe thousands - more? That seems a fitting subject for a song to _me_ ,” Jaskier says. “ _Many the ballads of battle and blade / many the songs of the bright-shining steel / but sing with me now of the sorceress sweet / whose hands are the hands of a healer_. What do you think, Aubry?”

“I’d sing it,” Aubry says.

Triss is blushing, cheeks very pink. “You wouldn’t.”

“Oh, I will,” Jaskier says. “You shall have a song worthy of you, my friend.”

And when he sings it, a week later, to the assembled Witchers of Kaer Morhen, it is not stone-faced Rennes alone who weeps - and sings along.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you all for your comments, kudos, and support! Please feel free to come and say hello on tumblr or discord!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] Left on the Hither Side of Death](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27361531) by [AceOfTigers](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AceOfTigers/pseuds/AceOfTigers)




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